


Hold still

by Elisexyz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Holding Hands, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: s03e10 Christmas Spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: “I mean—” Buck mutters, turning to Eddie for approval. “I could accompany you guys home?”Coda to 3x10.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 54
Kudos: 360





	Hold still

**Author's Note:**

> This definitely shouldn't have taken so long for me to write. I hope you will enjoy it, and merry Christmas to all those who celebrate! <3

“Hey, Eddie.”

He turns around, registering Buck’s voice and the hidden smile in his tone when he’s already mid-motion. He is, he soon finds out, grinning from ear to ear, Christopher hanging onto his neck, face pressed against his shoulder and probably drooling all over his uniform.

“I think _someone_ here tired himself out,” Buck adds, fondly.

Eddie can’t help reciprocating his smile, offering a little nod as acknowledgement and as a thank you, before stepping forward, arms extended so that he can take his son and get him home. The party has more or less died out, and their shift is over: Buck will probably want nothing better than getting home and catching some shut eye, especially since he is the one who went through the trouble of organizing this whole thing in the first place.

(Eddie has had enough of a good time that he has almost forgotten the crushing guilt at the thought of not being _there_ for Christmas, so familiar and for that all the more burdening, the disappointment on Christopher’s face, the feeling of dread when he asked Buck to be there instead and he had to turn him down too—thank god for Buck and Athena and their surprise party. Thank _god_.)

“Nah, it’s alright,” Buck waves him off, though only with a head gesture, since his hands are full. “I’ve got him.” Eddie barely has time to blink at him and feel something tug in his chest before Buck speaks again, with disarming ease. “His crutches are over there,” he adds, tilting his head. 

“Alright,” Eddie mumbles, feeling a little hangover, though he has barely had anything to drink in the first place, as he quickly goes to grab them before following Buck towards the truck.

When he tries putting Chris down in the backseat, he sleepily mutters something, his fingers clasping Buck’s shirt and refusing to let go, even when he is done strapping him in and he’s attempting to pull back.

“No,” Christopher protests, one hand reaching up for Buck’s neck. Buck leans forward a little more, which is entirely counterproductive if he means to get out of the car. “Stay,” Christopher adds, tugging at him to pull him even closer.

Buck opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, guilt shining plainly on his face at the idea of having to flat out tell him no, and Eddie is about to take pity on him and step forward so he can intervene, if to explain to his son that Buck needs to go home or to reassure Buck himself that everything is okay and he can go he isn’t sure, but he isn’t fast enough.

“I mean—” Buck mutters, turning to Eddie for approval. “I could accompany you guys home?”

Eddie blinks at him, mouths half open for a couple of seconds, but eventually he shrugs. “If you want—” He trials off, his brain failing to formulate a coherent thought on the whole thing. Maybe he’s just tired.

He ends up getting into the driver’s seat, watching as Buck all too enthusiastically gets settled next to Christopher, chiming: “See, buddy? Your dad says I can come with!”

Christopher spends the whole trip happily nuzzling against Buck’s shirt, Buck doesn’t stop looking at him in _awe_ the whole time, and Eddie—well, Eddie just really likes this. Right there, driving through streets full of Christmas lights, tired after a day of working and a surprise party that allowed him to stop feeling like such a lousy parent for not being present, for a minute he forgets why this Christmas was bound to feel so cheap compared to the last one.

The last one was _special_ , for a minute they were so happy and Eddie had allowed himself to believe that things could be _fixed_ —Chris seems impossibly content, Buck looks at him like he has never wanted anything more from his life than playing pillow to an overly affectionate eight-year-old, and Eddie would be perfectly fine just driving around like that for hours to no end, until he the image is burnt forever in his mind.

All too soon, they reach the house.

Buck carefully takes his and Chris’ seatbelt off, delicately prying the kid’s arms off him when Eddie comes up to take him.

For a second, the tender look on Buck’s face seems to falter, when he’s left alone in the backseat, and Eddie feels the urge to fix—whatever is wrong with this picture.

“Can you open the door for me?” he asks, quietly, handing out the keys to the front door.

“Yeah, sure,” Buck immediately says, much more enthusiastic than warranted, grabbing the keys and all but bouncing out of the car. “Here,” he adds, shifting awkwardly on his feet as he holds the door open to let them inside.

Eddie steps in, Christopher’s head settled on his shoulder and his weight in his arms reminding him that he needs to set him down soon, that thought battling with the urge to do—to say—something. He has no time to figure out what, and he spends so much time mulling it over that he forgets to say thank you.

“Uh, I have to put him to bed,” he mutters, eventually, to which Buck is quick to nod.

“Yeah, yeah, of course, I—I’m going to—” He makes a vague gesture towards the still open front door, and Eddie’s muscles twitch. He probably would have reached out, hadn’t he had his hands full.

“If you can wait a minute, I—” he blurts out, stopping on his tracks as soon as he realizes that he isn’t sure _how_ to ask him to stay. It feels like crossing a line that he isn’t even entirely sure is supposed to be _there_ , but there are so many things clogging his chest, trying to rush to the surface, that he can’t help feeling like he would regret not speaking up.

He is trying to learn not to bottle things up, because that is not the example that he wants to set for his son, because the last time he tried that—well, it was a _bad phase_.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that _stop bottling up_ goes for more than anger.

“Can you wait for me while I put him to bed?” Eddie ends up asking.

“Oh—yeah, yeah, of course,” Buck quickly gets out, hesitant and more than a little confused.

Eddie spends the whole routine of putting Christopher to bed with his heart throbbing, which is _extremely_ stupid.

Buck came all the way there, he would now have to somehow get all the way back to the station to get his car and _then_ go home, or he’d have to borrow Eddie’s car and come and pick him up when going to work—it’s very impractical, entirely unreasonable. Why _wouldn’t_ Eddie ask him to stay?

The only problem is that Eddie knows that he doesn’t give a shit about reasonable arrangements, he just doesn’t want this perfect little picture that he has been enjoying up until now to be shattered by Buck going home.

Watching Buck with Christopher makes him feel full in a way that’s so close to what he felt when he saw him reunite with Shannon, and that—that’s probably food for thought.

He doesn’t want him to go, period.

Buck waits for him by the door. He has closed it, but he has elected to keep uncomfortably shifting on his feet nearby, waiting to be thrown out.

It’s a little ridiculous and a little painful, because Buck comes over so often that he could basically call it home, and—and Eddie likes it much better when he fits in their family like it’s the most natural thing in the world, not when he stands awkwardly by the door like he doesn’t know what he is supposed to do with himself.

“So—” Buck breathes out, with a nervous smile, eyes flickering to the ground and then back up. “You enjoyed the party?”

“Would you like to stay?” Eddie blurts out, the awkward question he was supposed to answer barely registering.

Buck blinks at him. “I—I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose—”

“You never impose.”

It’s true.

A smile flickers on Buck’s face, and Eddie’s stomach flips.

“Chris loves having you around.”

Also true.

Buck grins fondly. “I love being around him too.”

Eddie knows he does. There are few things that he is absolutely certain of in this world, and Buck loving Chris to the moon and back is certainly one of them. He thinks he might be a little in love with him because of that alone.

With that thought formed, everything comes to an alt for a second, because— _oh_. That makes sense. He _knew_ , somewhere in that messy head of his, he just—he _knew_ , alright, he knew the moment Buck abandoned him the way Shannon did and all he could think was _god, no, not again_ , it just never really _clicked_.

Until, well, now.

“We like having you in our family,” Eddie ends up saying, heart throbbing in his throat and a paranoid feeling that Buck will just _know_ by looking at him nagging him.

It’s true, and it’s neutral enough, it doesn’t need to _ruin_ anything—

Buck smiles so wide it’s blinding to look at, and Eddie almost believes that, even if he knew, nothing would be ruined at all.

He stays the night.

Eddie comes up with a mumbled excuse about being too awake after the party and wanting to watch a movie, just because his skin itches to keep Buck _close_ now, just as much as his head screams for him to take a step back and try to forget he ever even realized anything to begin with.

They end up on the couch, shoulder to shoulder, Buck zapping in an attempt at finding something to watch and Eddie barely paying any attention, his eyes flickering back to him every two seconds.

Once, Buck catches him, and Eddie has no idea if he managed to play it cool or what, he just knows that they are always sitting this close or being all over each other and he wishes he could stop being so hyperaware of it now.

(If he were a smarter man, he’d excuse himself and head to bed.)

“That dude’s hot,” Buck blurts out, startling him out of his thoughts.

Eddie blinks, not even turning to the TV. “Sorry?”

Buck, on the other hand, keeps his eyes fixated on the screen, gesturing with his right hand, holding the remote, as he shrugs. “I mean, maybe he’s not exactly my _type_ of guy, but he’s hot.”

Eddie wishes his throat weren’t so dry, maybe he would manage to crack a flirtatious joke about exactly what _is_ Buck’s type of guy.

(Because that, too, is something that they do a lot.)

Instead, he manages to tear his eyes off Buck’s tense, trying-too-hard-to-play-it-cool figure, to cast a quick glance at the guy in question, some attractive blond guy, and he just—he’s probably reading too much into it, because it can’t be a coincidence that he suddenly finds so much hidden meaning, right when he _realized_ , Buck probably just means it in a ‘I’m straight but I have eyes’ kind of way, not a ‘trying to let you know I’m into dudes’ way, but—

Jesus Christ.

“Yeah,” Eddie eventually says, clearing his throat. “I had a boyfriend once who kinda looked like him.”

That’s bullshit, but Buck turns around so fast it probably gives him whiplash, and, for a second, Eddie hopes.

“Oh—” Buck lets out, a little wide eyed. It takes him a few moments to regain a little more composure. “I—I mean, I hadn’t realized.”

Eddie shrugs. “I like blonds.”

That’s true, the only boyfriend he ever had _was_ a blond.

So. There’s that.

Buck’s laugh is a little nervous, a little awkward, and Eddie isn’t sure what to make of it. “Great news for me, then,” he jokes, and Eddie isn’t sure what his face is doing, but—goddammit, he needs to stop reading into this.

He quickly turns to the TV, feeling his ears _burn_ and trying to take a discreet breath. “So we’re watching this?” he asks, as neutrally as he can.

“Yeah,” Buck says, slowly, after too long a pause. “I guess so.”

Eddie doesn’t look at him anymore, though it’s quite the task and his brain isn’t registering the plot of the movie either, until he catches a movement with the corner of his eye, and then there’s Buck’s hand, casually resting all too close to his, almost as an invitation.

( _Is_ he reading into this?)

He waits what he thinks is a reasonable amount of time, though every second seems to stretch for so long it’s ridiculous, then he moves his hand slightly to the right, until he’s kinda-not-really-but-might-as-well touching Buck’s.

Who nudges him back. Deliberately.

A brief moment of insanity and a sprout of bravery later, they are holding hands, and Eddie feels like someone has lifted a whole truck off his chest.

They are _literally_ —this is probably not him reading into things.

He has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop grinning like an idiot, and he makes it a point of keeping his eyes straight ahead, because something stupid in him thinks that if he dared to move he’d do something to mess it up.

Buck, though, doesn’t seem to share that fear: fingers still interlaced with his, he scoots closer, until he has settled comfortably with his head on Eddie’s shoulder.

At that, Eddie can’t help turning, looking down on him in awe.

“Your couch sucks,” Buck explains, curling a little on himself. “You are much more comfortable.”

Eddie sucks in a breath, squeezing his hand. “You could sleep in my room,” he offers, vaguely realizing that time seems to be stretching weirdly around them. “I, uh, I don’t mind sharing.”

He really, _really_ doesn’t.

There’s a pause. “In a minute,” Buck says, the smile echoing in his voice as he nuzzles against his shoulder.

Yeah, right. In a minute.

Eddie breathes, and he doesn’t move.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates comments, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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